Burning
by Esperance
Summary: Roxas knows the pain of a sunburn; Axel cannot. 358/2 Days timeline, one-sided Axel/Roxas.


Title: Burning

Author: Esperance

Rating: K+

Fandom/Characters/Pairings: Kingdom Hearts; Axel, Roxas; onesided Axel/Roxas…as much as there can be?

Word Count: 954 words

Author's Notes: Written in a burst of inspiration while I was at the beach and…you guessed it, got a sunburn (on my feet and ankles, no less) and put a lot of aloe vera ointment on it. Anyway, I should probably start to feel slightly bad for all this pain and heartbreak I keep putting Axel through in my fics. Probably. The song at the end is one I'm kind of in love with at the moment, and my iPod is probably scheming to murder me in my sleep for keeping it on infinite loop.

* * *

Roxas knew the pain of a sunburn.

Over the course of his latest mission his admittedly fair skin had been under the ultraviolet radiation from a desert sun, rearranging parts of his biology, corrupting proteins and expanding vessels and inflaming cells. Where once all had been pale and perfect was now splotchy and swelling and unnaturally warm.

It could have been much worse; thankfully it was contained to his face and arms, with scattered patches on his neck and chest from where he'd peeled back the sleeves and unzipped the main fly of their uniform. Non-reflective black imitation-leather was unsurprisingly stifling in hundred-degree heat.

Form over function seemed to be the general rule in all matters concerning Organization XIII.

"Stop touching it," Axel growls, scooping out a liberal palmful of goop. Potions were only useful for the major injuries: bone-breaks and disemboweling accidents and the like. Anything on the dermal level had to be treated with herbal remedies and creams or left to heal on its own. With any amount of luck, the kid would bounce back in the morning with a fresh reapplication of aloe vera and only minor complaints, the whole thing would fade into a nice tan by the end of the week, and he could chalk it up to practice for whenever he finally got to go to that damned beach he was always dreaming about.

"So this is...Pain."

With a sense of detachment, Roxas presses his index finger to the angry pink skin, at first barely a brush and then digging in until he almost yelps, pulling back with a flinch. "I do not know how to describe this," he says, in that weird clinical tone he probably picked up from Vexen, and Axel can't decide whether he should ask if he needs to write this down for further investigation or if he's worked on his mad scientist laugh yet.

He repeats the poking, endlessly fascinated as he touches the same spot again and exhibits the same look of torture that is quickly replaced with delight once the finger is removed. It's almost unsettling, in that Axel knows the boy is just desperate enough to feel something, anything-in a way that not even any of the other members are-that he could take masochism to a new level if he thought it would be the only way to get him close to whatever he used to be. He could go out and kill himself just for a shred of knowledge or that final high.

"Give me your arm," Axel says abruptly, yanking it away to slather on the green, minty-smelling stuff. Roxas makes one of his common "annoyed" faces.

"It's sticky," he pouts, and it's times like this he remembers how young Roxas really is, and how much weight he's under to be the Organization's top fighter and complete missions in sweltering conditions and pretend that he has some semblance of knowing what's going on. For a second Axel wants to say something in a non sequitur vein that is awkwardly comforting, or make one of his groan-worthy jokes, or drop one of those secrets that he can't shake out of his head.

Instead, he says: "It's soothing. Now shut up."

He'd been silent as he rubbed it in - up one arm to the shoulder, smoothing down to one knobby elbow before covering the underside, carefully around the throat and neck, and back down his right arm.

He pauses when he faces the unclothed chest, last of all. He is already halfway thinking of how he's going to reek of this for days and cringing at how much soap and water it's going to take to feel clean and wow-was-he-never-doing-this-again, and makes the mistake of looking up.

It's like there's an airlock on the room. There's something in the blond's eyes like a challenge, and he is suddenly struck with the intimacy of the contact. Alone, skin-to-skin, murmurs and shared breaths and heat and friction...How things could be initiated with not much more encouragement. If he could, he'd be scared with how much he wants it to go in that direction.

Without much hesitation, he reaches out and purposefully palms the right side, where there should be something beating under his hand, never breaking eye contact and maybe holding his breath just a little.

See, he wants to say, we don't need this.

Something must get through, because the eyes change again. Understanding?

"It's funny," Roxas says, his words taking on that slightly-awed, nearly bemused tone he gets whenever he stumbles upon some unlikely, ironic truth about the worlds he's still trying to wrap his amnesiac-like mind completely around. "That's the first time you've ever touched me that I felt something."

Axel stops, rises to his full height, and looks down through narrowed eyes. If it were anyone else before him, they'd be cowed. "That's _hilarious_," he says, then remembers that Roxas is the only person ever that has never grasped the concept of sarcasm and then pushes the bottle at him, hard. The boy cradles it with an already-peeling palm, his reddening (not blushing) face rising to showcase a look of not-quite confusion; wondering if he did something wrong or if this is just another one of Axel's violent mood swings.

Axel steps away smoothly, then pivots on a heel to storm out the door and call over the threshold: "Do it yourself."

It had been sympathy in his eyes.

His body accustomed to the scorching heat of fire he calls, skin smooth and unscarred as the flames dance on his fingertips to the song only he can hear, Axel can't know the pain of a sunburn.

It's not the only thing he will never be able to feel.

* * *

_...And he turned my eyes from god, and oh, I fell_

_He put this heat inside me I'm ashamed to tell_

_Without my god inside I'm just a burning shell_

_-"Belle" Notre Dame de Paris_

* * *

Yeah, reviews would be really great. Like, I'd-bear-your-children-for-you great.


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